dan/california

Bah I wouldn't trust Russia at all. It is entirely in Russian interest to play up it's "paranoia" vis nuclear strikes from the West. Same "paranoia" has underpinned everything from the F-16s inbound to Ukraine, long range missiles, tanks, ammunition, Ukraine's status as a neutral base, the American biolabs designing COVID in Ukraine, the secret operating bases for NATO, etc.
Meanwhile actually signalers of Russian worry note the draining of personnel and equipment along Russia's NATO border, including air defense assets, hardly actions of a nation terrified of NATO invasion.

More expansion of defense manufacturing in the US. at Lima’s Joint Systems Manufacturing Center (JSMC).

"The JSMC is scheduled for a significant increase in government investment in the publicly-owned, privately-managed factory, with its budget increasing to $287.1 million in 2028 and $300 million in 2029 for plant upgrades, including more automated and robotic processes. The plant, which refurbishes existing tanks, will produce new hulls from raw products for the first time since the 1990s at its 369-acre campus off Buckeye Road, south of Lima"

https://www.limaohio.com/top-stories/2024/05/20/major-improvements-coming-to-limas-tank-plant/

Not at all sure I agree with this. The Putin regime wants to survive this war. It seems to have recently, MAYBE, decided that getting some sort of ceasefire/armistice is its best chance. Stating that they wouldn't mess with a radar whose primary purpose is to never be used, and to announce the end of the world if it is, does not accord with anything Putin has done since February 2022. He has an enormous tolerance for risk, and things like blowing the Khahovka dam, and the endless threats to cause a nuclear melt down prove it. Putin would sacrifice strategic assets in heartbeat to get out of the bind he has stuck himself into. 
It will be very revealing to see if there is a big increase in U.S. finger wagging about Ukrainian strikes in Russia. I am assuming we have pretty good information one way or the other on what happened here. Among other things the posted photos were taken at ground level at what is presumably a very secure facility. and it happens at the exact moment Russia starts to push for a cease fire. All sorts of things are just to convenient for the Kremlin here.

There is no evidence Ukraine has ever violated an agreement with the U.S. about the utilization of a particular weapon system. Indeed their is at least a a rumor that the U.S. sees an actual target list beforehand for the longer range stuff. The Ukrainian very long range drone program is first and foremost a response to the six month stoppage in U.S. aid. We can't possibly blame them for that. I am absolutely certain the Ukrainians would give the U.S. the same target pre approval with that system in return for being able to drop a couple of dozen ATACMS on Tagnerog, and other air bases just over the Russian border from Ukraine. It even sounds like that deal might be underway.
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the Russian air defense system is so broken that top tier strategic assets can hit by what amount to autonomous kamikaze Cessnas.
Last but not least, their is a none zero chance the Russians blew up their own radar just to apply diplomatic pressure on the Ukrainians over the strike program. Said program is by all appearances having an effect.
If we want the Ukrainians to quit fighting, and accept a ceasefire/armistice on the current lines, all we have to do is accept them into (Edit: NATO) and the EU at the same table, at the same time. If we can't get ourselves organized to do that the choices are allowing Ukraine to be defeated, or supporting it until Russia collapses. Seems like it is time for some diplomats to have a frank discussion or five.

I certainly agree  with you, it was a dangerous move if the UAF actually did it. It just interests me that the UAF would waste valuable munitions on targets that have almost no value to them. The radars are fixed and not looking into Ukraine, and even if they were most TACAIR operations would fall below the radar horizon - if the public numbers are right.

I used this calculator. assuming 30m for sensor height.
https://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/en-US/calculator/radar-horizon/

Forgive me if that wasn't clear but I did not say they had violated an agreement. I said that it was deeply irresponsible to hit that particular target. It is of only marginal use to the Russian military vis a vis the war in Ukraine but is a significant strategic Russian asset that tracks incoming ICBMS. That's flat out destabilizing and provides fuel to those who want to limit ATACMs, etc.  

Don't think this has been shared yet - the recent ATACMS strike on S-400 site
 
 

I am wondering if this is coordinated with the recent Ukrainian bout of strikes on RUS air defence assets. Focus on the enemy's AD makes great sense if you have, or are planning to have, enough air assets to switch to other targets soon enough. Otherwise exchanging your inventory of missiles and other air assets for the enemy's air defence seems not particularly helpful to the overall war effort. Like this old joke about soviet thieves who robbed a liquor store - the Militia caught them and they were being interrogated: "Where is the vodka?" We sold it!" "Where is the money?" "We spent it all on vodka"

Timing of the offensive makes sense in that this was probably the weakest that Ukraine would get. Artillery shortages were widely reported and the Russians could certainly count the volume of artillery fire coming their way.  With the aid now freed up, it was probably now  or never.  Having Kharkiv under bombardment would be a setback for Ukraine and help fuel the doom narrative being fed into media channels.
Interesting that we are seeing lots of activity in destroying air defence installations and airbases & aircraft.   Now when were those F16s supposed to appear?

The other axis member turns up the heat in their backyard:
https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqvv29gpqn1o
The west cannot continue their anemic ramp up of military arms manufacturing.  Things are getting serious.

It is at least possible that Russia's entire plan for this year was based on the U.S. aid never passing. Now that it has, and Ukrainian gunners are back action at full volume, among other things, everything they are doing may be a panicked twitch to keep the Czar appeased for another week.
The question remains, does anybody on the Russian side have the sense to go home, or are they keep going until something breaks, and takes the regime down with it.
 

"We were always at war with Eurasia" - there is really no problem explaining that to the Russians, since the English guy wrote the handbook.

https://mastodon.social/@MAKS23/112491319767010989
That's the fifth claimed since 4th May.

Allegedle plan of Russian troops in current operation on the north of Kharkiv oblast. 
Troops of 6th CAA and 11th Army Corps from the north capture Vovchansk and advance south along the water reservoir of Siverskyi Donets river. Simultainoulsly (or with some delay) troops of 1st Tank army comes from the east to Oskol river and cut off the road Shevchenkove - Kupiansk. Next is encirtclement of Kupiansk group of UKR troops. 
Russian advance in Vovchansk now is bogged. But from the east Russians attack through captured Kyslivka village along railroad toward Kupinask-Vuzlovyi.
 

This is pretty much where I am at for this war at least - manoeuvre is essentially dead (or perhaps dormant).  We know western-style manoeuvre did not work last summer and likely will not under these conditions.  Even if the RA could manage a breakout, modern ISR would pin it pretty quickly and those deep battle forces would effectively be surrounded by a bunch of PGM armed resistance.  The UA is too connected and integrated in defence.  And here is the thing, I am not so sure the UA would not risk suffering the same fate at this point if they managed to achieve breakout.  The RA may have different emphasis but their ISR is still effective and they have PGM too.
So we are really back to WW1 games here - attrition/exhaustion. This is really engineering systemic collapses on an opponent through longer term front end attrition or corrosive warfare in depth.  Neither side is going to be able to pull off a "drive" anywhere until the other side suffers catastrophic internal failures.

I am sticking to my theory that this is all just Putin saying "attack, attack, attack".  Then getting mad because it fails.  So someone says "maybe we attack somewhere else" and they go do it.  And it fails.  So then he gets mad and starts firing everyone.  And now he'll have even less militarily-savvy folks running the military, who will probably lean toward the same things as before but with even less skill.  Attack attack attack and launch even more terrorism strikes on civilians.  
My ongoing question is whether Putin will burn up enough resources such that UKR can actually do something offensively, somewhere.  Will a RU artillery & soldier shortage lead to weakened sections of the front?  Could weak areas be exploited, considering mines & drones?  
On the earlier discussion about RU breaking up, I am pretty sure China wants a nice peaceful breakup that leaves all those eastern provinces independent but also quite reliant on China for trade & arms & loans.  Those eastern provinces have yummy fossil fuels.  So china would get RU threat off its border and get cheap energy.  

Possibly.  But how far does China want to get pulled into this thing.  Sustaining a half a million Russians in the field in the modern environment costs billions.  I don’t think China is interested in free loans and aid on those levels.  They are willing to sell but how long can Russia buy?

The more alarming explanation is that they think they can sustain more resource sucking frontal assaults on the theory that they will run Ukraine out of something critical (manpower? western willpower?) first. The west seems allergic to the idea of any resource sucking frontal assaults, so perhaps the Russian theory of victory is the establishment of resource-sucking-frontal-assault supremacy?
My understanding of Soviet doctrine was that you reinforce success to produce operational breakthroughs, and the tear around in your enemy's backfield causing havoc. If you take the very idea of "operational breakthroughs" off the table, which I think makes sense given what we've seen, what does that operational art become?
Let's say we're convinced that no amount of success will produce an operational breakthrough (and I'm pretty much there; you'd have to blow a hole in the enemy lines that's like fifty kilometers wide to be able to exploit it without something carving up your logistics train, and at that point you've probably already won the war). If echeloning your reserve units to develop breakthroughs isn't a thing anymore, what do you do with reserve units?

To me this kind of depends on China.

This is a mistake we have seen western pundits make repeatedly, these are far too large muscle movements for the RA of 2024.  First off, there is no "surprise" left anymore.  It has been reported that the UA saw this one coming well out but were either restricted by ROEs or simply did not have the resources to stop right at the border.
The RA is not able to do "drives" at this point.  They do not have the logistics nor combat power to sustain it.  Nor do they seem able to exploit any "fixing".

So the Russian military strategy really is feeling like a Big Bluff by this point.  Look mean, big and bottomless.  This has led to an "always attack, always be seen attacking" approach in order to keep the "weak kneed west" shaking and doubting - we saw it here on this forum.  So if the RA is starting to run out of any or all of those elements they need to shift "always be seen attacking" to another area where they can get juice for squeeze.  This Kharkiv thing was noted for being largely dismounted and light on support, it was low hanging fruit.  Now we may see RA bites elsewhere as they keep trying to take nibbles and sell them as bites.  This all makes a lot of sense if they are running out of gas on the main effort down south.
So the next question - how long can they keep this up?

It's pretty simple in a certain way. This is a mafia state. Corruption is standard operating procedure. Fealty and money moves up while protection is provided down. Once Shoigu lost control of the MoD his 'tail' no longer had anyone to pay and nobody to provide krisha. Rule *by* law then applies. All of the obvious theft that was ignored when they were under Shoigu's wing suddenly becomes a state case and they are ejected in favor of officials who are of the newly favored faction. 
Here's where it gets interesting. Does Belousov have a faction with which to populate the ministry? I don't think so...at least not in the way in which the thoroughly political Shoigu did. I take that fact to mean that there will be more selections that answer directly to Putin. The goal being to coup proof things more thoroughly and also to attempt to streamline the Russian military industrial complex for a long war.  

Is it remotely possible that Putin is sacking so many high-ranking officers to use as scapegoats to help with an off-ramp to this war.  Blame it on the military leaders so the failure of this war doesn't fall on him.  Wishful thinking?

Good lord, I think we have been too close to the problem on all this.  This entire Kharkiv thing may be far simpler than we have been thinking.  What if the RA realized it simply can no longer sustain the losses of playing smash face down south and shifted to Kharkiv in order to “stay on offensive”?